1Mix Radio: Interview: Kyau and Albert

Monday 9 March 2015

Interview: Kyau and Albert

Interview with Kyau and Albert. The exceptional DJ & production duo Kyau & Albert return in 2015 with a brand new shining album that sounds great. The beloved German artists always manage to produce tracks with complexity, substance, rich sound textures and most importantly unforgettable melodies and involving lyrics that resonate in the life of any electronic music fan. Their music can be generally characterised as trance but the truth is that Kyau & Albert sound incorporates elements and influences from many other genres. Their Distant Lights album tour is in full effect so we were not sure if they will manage to reply on this interview and I'm glad that they finally did and you can read right now their informative answers.

Interview is written and conducted by Dimitri Kechagias, Music Journalist/1mix radio host

Dimitri: First of all it would be great to let us know why you chose the title 'Distant Lights', what does it signify for you, and if there were other options for alternative album titles?

Ralph: We had a few ideas for an the album title. It was important for us that the title also works well for our album tour.

Steven: Distant Lights holds a pleasant, comforting sense of optimism and it still let space for own interpretations.

Dimitri: In what ways is Distant Lights different from your previous albums and why? Can you pinpoint differences and similarities from your previous works?

Steven: It is not too different to the albums we released before. It is again a melodic and diverse album, which features a lot of vocals from me plus the four female singers: Neev Kennedy from Ireland, Maria Nayler from the UK, Sofia from Spain and Adaja Black from Australia.

Ralph: Distant Lights is our forth studio album, so of course all our experience from the last three studio albums are in Distant Lights. Quite similar is that only the strongest tracks made it into the final album tracklist.

Dimitri: How long did it take you to record the album and did you manage to finish it on time according to the deadline?

Ralph: We did not set ourselves a real deadline. Roughly, we wanted to release the album before end of 2014, finally it got released in February 2015, which is so not too far away over the deadline ;-)

Steven: We already started to work on the album after we released our last album Nights Awake in 2013. So it took almost 2 years.

Dimitri: Do you consider the album recording process as intensive and stressfull or relaxed and easy going?

Ralph: Being creative is most times intense, but as we fly around the world for our DJ gigs very often, we always get the distance to the studio at home and for me travelling additionally brings a lot of new inspirations.

Steven: We work on most tracks over months and fine-tune every track step-by-step, for example we tested all DJ friendly tracks on the album at our gigs and adjusted them.

Dimitri: Did you have a daily schedule to record tracks or do you usually produce when you have a great idea?

Steven: When we're at home whether we work in the office for our own label Euphonic or we sit in the studio to make some music.

Ralph: In the final process of finishing the album we spent a lot of time in the studio.

Dimitri: Are there any recurring themes that come up in the lyrics of the tracks in a way that can be named as a concept album or did you attempt to include a variety of themes?

Steven: The lyrics of all tracks were written independently from each other. So there's no concept behind.

Dimitri: For the benefit of technology nerds and fellow producers I guess they will be interested to hear if you have done any major upgrades to your studio to produce the tracks for the album. Can you describe for us the set up that you use please.

Ralph: We still use the setup we had in the last years, of course we try out new plugins. If you believe it or not, we used Cubase VST on PC for Distant Lights. Never change a running system!

Dimitri: Did you produce more than enough tracks, some of which didn't manage to get included on the album. If so, would you like to let us know some of those that are not included?

Ralph: We were selecting 13 tracks for the final album from over 40 ideas we did since the last album. We also merged a few ideas into one track. And we also kept a few strong tracks which we will release later.

Dimitri: The album contains great collaborations with vocalists and you also deliver some vocals on the tracks yourselves. Is it most enjoyable to work with other singers or do you find it more straight forward when youdo it yourselves?

Steven: It was great to work with the four ladies and in my opinion an album only with my vocals would be too boring.

Ralph: He is always too self critical! But indeed the guest vocalists made the album more diverse. On the other hand Steven's voice makes Kyau & Albert recognisable in the whole EDM scene.

Dimitri: I will mention the names of some of the collaborators you work with and it would be great for you to pass a short comment about each of them:

Maria Nayler: We wanted to work with her from the beginning for the album. Our friend Raz Nitzan wrote the lyrics with her.

Neev Kennedy: She is a wonderful artist, also this track was created together with Raz Nitzan.

Adaja Black: She was already featured on our last album Nights Awake. We met Adaja the first time at a gig in Sydney in 2012. There she gave us a demo CD which we really liked.

Sofia: We came in contact with her via our music publisher Sony/ATV, which we successful work together since 10 years. Sofia just got signed to Sony/ATV and she was looking for producers who want to feature her voice.

Stoneface & Terminal: We already did a track together with our Euphonic label mates on our last album. So for Distant Lights we created again a great track, which just gets massive DJ support from everywhere.

Dimitri: I wonder if you are thinking you might re-record some of your older classic tracks with different singers rather than you singing on them. Can you think of tracks from your back catalogue that would be appropriate for other singers? Who would you like to sing on them?

Ralph: There is nothing planned like this, but this is a really great idea, which we will keep in mind!

Dimitri: It would be great to describe the process of recording a track. From which element do you start first, and do you have any good tips for aspiring producers to deliver tracks to your high quality level.

Steven: We first do instrumental demos. For the best instrumentals we try to create the vocal hook on top, sometimes in a kind of fantasy English. In the end we try to find suitable lyrics.

Ralph: If we have the composition, we start working on the track and optimise the arrangement including live testing at our DJ gigs.

Dimitri: How did you feel when you saw the beer with your face on them?

Ralph: We have been home brewing beer since 2008. So we brewed the Distant Lights beer and created the beer label together with our graphic designer. It was like a dream came true. Everybody loves the idea and a lot who already tried it like the taste.

Dimitri: Are you looking forward for the Distant Lights world tour and what can the fans expect to get at your DJ set/performance?

Steven: Yes, we already started the tour in Australia in January. In the next weeks we're playing a lot of shows in North America and Europe, but it is also planned to come to Asia and South America later this year.

Dimitri: Euphonic Records is going really strong as a record label. Are you going to carry on with the label as it is at the moment or are you thinking about implementing any changes that may needed?

Ralph: We still keep releasing new material on Euphonic. Beside new Kyau & Albert releases, there are also coming brand new releases for example from Mino Safy, Stoneface & Terminal and Steve Brian.

Dimitri: You have been together for so long and I guess there may have been temptations to split up and carry on with solo careers. Is there a secret behind your work as a duo and have there been any serious moments when you may decided to stop your collaboration?

Steven: We have known each other for over 20 years now and run together the Euphonic label business as well. So there were of course hard talks in the beginning of Kyau & Albert, but nowadays we know each other very well and accept the other ones opinion.

Ralph: Yes, even today we are not always the same opinion, but this is not a reason to split up. We are both professionals and most important: we have quite the same musical taste, which is most important in my opinion as musicians. My ex-girlfriend sometimes made fun and said that we act like an old couple, but I don't think so. The secret is that we just respect each other!

Dimitri: Lets finish with the most memorable incident that has happen in your career so far...

Steven: A hard question. There were a lot of memorable things. Maybe the initial turbo in our career was when we signed our single Outside/Be There 4 U to Warner Music and then got our first chart hit and big radio single including video rotation on MTV all over Europe.

Ralph: A quite interesting fact was that the vocal of Outside/Be There 4 U was also used for a big Drum'n'Bass bootleg which sold over 30 000 vinyl records. Unfortunately the guys did not mention us on the release as the track was also featured on Mixmag's covermount CD called Trance'n'Bass. Luckily later people recognised that this was the full Kyau & Albert vocal hook.

Ralph & Steven: All album info + tour dates under this link: album.kyauandalbert.net

Thanks so much to both of them for taking some time out of their busy tour schedule to reply to this interview.

Many thanks to Susann at Euphonic records offices for helping me to organise this interview.

Enjoy their finest remix at the moment on Aquilo - I Gave It All